Pablo Fernandez

Nicer printing of Rails models

by

Pablo Fernandez
,

I like my models to be printed nicely, to make the class of the model as well as the id and other data available, so, when they end up in a log or console, I can now exactly what it is. I’ve been doing this since before Rails 3 and since Rails projects now have an ApplicationRecord class, it’s even easier.

On my global parent for all model classes, ApplicationRecord I add this:

def to_s(extra = nil)
  if extra
    extra = ":#{extra}"
  end
  "#<#{self.class.name}:#{id}#{extra}>"
end

That makes all records automatically print as:

<ModelName:id>

For example:

<User:123>

which makes the record findable.

But also, allows the sub-classes to add a bit of extra information without having to re-specify the whole format. For example, for the User class, it might be:

  def to_s
    super(email)
  end

so that when the user gets printed, it ends up being:

<User:123:sam@example.com>

which I found helps a lot with quickly debugging issues, in production as well as development environments.

2 responses to “Nicer printing of Rails models”

  1. Dmitry Non Avatar
    Dmitry Non

    Hey!
    Neat trick, I’ve done something similar but never in AR models.
    I would suggest using `#inspect` though. `#to_s` may unintentionally end up somewhere in production frontend (through interpolation) and expose something we don’t want to (like a personal email). `#inspect` I *think* should be picked up by repls (irb, pry) automatically and can be used for logging through `puts user.inspect`

    Reply
  2. Nondv Avatar
    Nondv

    Hey!
    Neat trick, I’ve done something similar but never in AR models.
    I would suggest using `#inspect` though. `#to_s` may unintentionally end up somewhere in production frontend (through interpolation) and expose something we don’t want to (like a personal email). `#inspect` I *think* should be picked up by repls (irb, pry) automatically and can be used for logging through `puts user.inspect`

    Reply

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